About half an hour away from Miami, I begin to question my decision. Sabrina, in the backseat, taps my shoulder.
"You okay?" I turn around in my seat.
"Fine. I'm fine. Why do you ask?" She gives me a look.
"You're kind of...antsy. You've been constantly shifting around for the past ten minutes." I'm about to ask Raleigh if I've really been doing that, but she's got her eye on the road. Her earphones are in too, which although I'm not familiar with driving laws, I'm pretty sure is illegal. Raleigh wouldn't care, though.
"I'm just not used to this," I mumble.
"I wouldn't be either," Sabrina nods.
Raleigh yanks out her earbuds suddenly. Seconds after, highway patrol glides by, and Sabrina chuckles lightly.
"One day, you are going to get arrested or something," I warn.
"How do you know I haven't been already? My eyes widen, and Raleigh snickers. "Nah, my record's clean. Besides, they'd only give me a ticket."
"Would you even care if they did?" Sabrina questions.
"It'd probably dampen my spirit for an hour. But hey, I've got but one life. I'm going to regret nothing when I'm through." Her words occupy my thoughts for the next twenty minutes.
I wish everyone thought and existed the way Raleigh does. I wish I was like her.
She lives.
Already I wish most of my eighteen years were different. They were nothing. I didn't mind it for a long time, a very long time. Yet I know that when I'm through, there will be plenty I regret.
When we made a quick stop at a gas station in Georgia, a homeless man approached our car, asking for spare change. Had I any, I would've given it to him. Raleigh told him to fuck off and get a job.
"I-I had a few quarters in my pocket," Sabrina had said in a small, indignant voice. I stared at my sister, wondering how she could be so inconsiderate.
"What?" Raleigh had asked me, as if she'd done nothing wrong. "There's nothing stopping him from working for his own money instead of begging us for ours."
Would you hire him? I'd wanted to ask, but I don't argue with Raleigh very often.
I wonder what that man regrets so much that he's allowed that to become his life.
We exit the freeway, and once more I find it impossible to sit still.
"Are you going to come home with us, Sabrina?" Raleigh asks. "Or should I drop you off at your own house?"
"Dez just texted me. He said Eli is at your house settling in, but he's at home. Uh, I'll come with you guys. I can help Ally unpack."
"Actually," I interrupt. "Let's go to Sabrina's just to stop by. I can help her unpack, and...say hi to her mom."
"Ally, I can put my stuff away later. Besides, my mom's not that great." I turn around.
Please, I mouth. A realization seems to strike in her mind.
"Fine, my house. Since it's on the way."
For a second, I'm relived. But then I'm freaking out inside, unsure what exactly I've gotten myself into.
~
"Ally! How have you been?" Susan asks, wrapping me in the tight kind of hug that you only get from family.
"I've been good," I smile and nod politely. "How about you?"
"Oh, same old. I was so excited to hear that you and Eli were coming; Dez only told me this morning."
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Opened Skies ~ An Auslly Fanfic
Fanfiction"Two years ago, Austin Moon told me he loved me. And I haven't seen him since." Ally Dawson left her home, bound for Miami, two years ago. She saw the world again for the first time in ten years, and it changed her. Two months later, she was pulled...
